


Five Things The Baker Taught Anastasia, and One Thing They Learnt Together

by afterandalasia



Category: Cinderella (1950)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Abuse Aftermath, Canon Compliant, Community: disney_kink, Community: kink_bingo, Courtship, F/M, Firsts, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Post-Movie(s), Recovery, Redemption, Romantic Fluff, Vanilla Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-23 06:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were many things Anastasia had not learnt in her life, before everything changed. The process takes years, but she does not regret one moment of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things The Baker Taught Anastasia, and One Thing They Learnt Together

**Author's Note:**

> May have some triggers for childhood abuse. The name 'Robin' is entirely made up, inspired by part of the name of the actor who voiced the Baker in Cinderella II.
> 
> Sort of combines Cinderella III and Cinderella II canon, but leans towards the former. Anastasia gets to be so awesome in that.

1.To Cook

Anastasia had never learnt how to cook. This was perhaps not surprising for the daughter of a gentleman, albeit one whose servant had been her own stepsister, but in her new life she realised that she wanted to learn. Robin knew, of course, and when eventually she managed to pluck up the urge to ask him, he just smiled and nodded and kissed her on the cheek.

It seemed so complex to her, but his hands moved as easily as breathing. Mixing the dough to the smooth, springy texture that she came to know with her eyes and fingertips. Scattering flour across the wooden surface of the table. Kneading, that repetitive movement, Robin reaching across to cover her hands in his to help her. She got smudges of flour on her cheek and dough on her nose, and Robin laughed and kissed her again, on her cheek, on her nose, and finally on her lips. Surrounded by the smell of the bakery, the smell of him, she felt herself relax into his arms and kiss him back.

He broke away a moment later, leaning their foreheads together, and murmured, “We should put the dough aside.” Her heart fluttered, but she felt a twinge of disappointment, until he added: “It will need a few hours to rise, after all.

 

2\. To Laugh

Anastasia had never learnt how to laugh. There had not really been much to laugh at when she was a child, possibly because being a child had not really seemed to last all that long. First her father had died, and then her stepfather, whom she had actually rather liked. Her mother and sister hadn’t liked him much, and they didn’t allow her to be upset.

Drizella laughed a lot. Anastasia rarely understood why, because the things that Drizella laughed at weren’t really funny. A bird that had been run over by a carriage. Lucifer catching a mouse. Trailing mud all over a floor that Cinderella had just cleaned and watching her cry because it meant she would have to wash it all over again. Anastasia didn’t laugh at those things.

Her mother didn’t really laugh. She rarely even smiled, and even then it didn’t seem to reach her eyes, and it never lasted long. It didn’t seem to be at anything in particular that Anastasia could recognise either. So Anastasia didn’t laugh at those things.

Cinderella didn’t laugh, at least not that Anastasia heard. Sometimes she would sing, and she had such a beautiful voice that the birds would gather at her window and sing back to her. Often, Anastasia would stop what she was doing and listen as well, and know that no matter what she did or how much she practised, she would never be able to sing that well. Most of the time her songs were happy, but occasionally they were sad, and privately Anastasia thought that those songs were the most beautiful. But she never said anything, and she never heard Cinderella laugh, not even when the Grand Duke came and took her away, and a beatific smile crossed her face.

There wasn’t really anybody else in her life. All of the servants had long gone, and most of the ton did not think that the Tremaines were fit to socialise with them. So she spent most of her time alone, or following her sister for lack of anyone else to be around, and nobody ever taught her how to laugh.

Robin was shy at first, but as they grew closer he started to make jokes. She would smile, behind her hand at first but then, as he drew it away, properly in front of him. He never commented on how she didn’t laugh, but she heard him share jokes with his customers and chuckle, or give a deep full-throated laugh that made her feel warm and weak and a little bit envious. At first, she tried to laugh by herself, thinking of a joke he had made or something which she had seen that struck her as humorous, but the sounds that escaped her were ugly and she cowered away from them.

When she finally learnt to laugh, it took her by surprise. It was beneath Robin’s kisses, his hands cupping her cheeks at first, her touch tentative but growing bolder each time they came together like this, tracing the lines of his chest, his shoulders, as they slowly came to know each other. By chance his hands, sliding lower, caught a little spot at the base of her neck that made her squirm and choke back a sound that rose in her throat.

Robin drew back with a playful smile. “Are you ticklish, Anna?”

She did not know. Memories of her childhood threatened to rise in her, days alone, nights staring into silent darkness, her mother turning away rather than embrace her. Rising like a tide, but another brush of Robin’s fingers over her shoulder sent them scurrying away as her muscles twitched and a little squeak escaped her.

Robin chuckled, softly, tenderly, but his hands ran over the sides of her neck again and she squirmed and twitched in his grasp. Another squeak escaped her, then a snort, and finally laughter burst out in waves, hoarse at first and then bright and ringing, catching on the walls and reflecting back again, making her muscles jump and twist in unexpected ways, almost painful, wonderful. Robin did not let up, hands moving still, one now coming down to her side and finding the same result, that laughter that burst out of her in rolling waves, until she collapsed against him, weak, tears in her eyes and chest sore, feeling all but spent and yet, at the same time, so relieved that she could not put it into words.

She pulled Robin in to kiss him again, tasting sugar and flour on his tongue, even as she trembled in his arms.

 

3\. To Play The Fiddle

Anastasia had never learnt how to make music. Her mother allowed her to try to play the flute for all of five minutes before snatching it away from her and saying that Drizella was better, and therefore Anastasia was going to sing. She never felt that her singing was particularly good, and the frown on her mother’s face seemed to suggest that she agreed, but with no skill on the flute and no piano forte to play, it was all that she had.

Robin said that his father had been a fiddler, and that he had a little bit of practice on it. He had inherited the fiddle, and the bow, and kept them in good condition. One evening, he played it for a small gathering of his friends (she struggled to think of them as their friends) and though he was hardly a violinist, everyone looked at him with pride and admiration, and everyone danced when he played.

The next morning, he said that he had seen her watching, and offered to show her how to play. At first she refused, but he coaxed and teased and persuaded, and eventually she set the fiddle beneath her chin, put her fingers on the string, and drew the bow across to produce a terrible squawking sound. Tears filled her eyes, and she wanted to throw it aside, but Robin laughed and said that everyone did that at first. He changed the position of her fingers, commented on how much thinner they were than his, and helped her draw the bow neatly over one string.

It made a note like song, and she caught her breath. Thereafter, almost every evening, she would sit and practice, with his assistance or by herself, and to her amazement she realised that this she could do. Beneath her fingers, the fiddle rang like silver, bright and fun, and the next gathering that they had at their house, Robin played for a while before handing the fiddle to her. Nervousness swelled in her, but then she sat, and played, and people danced for her in the warm confines of the room.

 _For me_ , she thought, and almost wept.

 

4\. To Swim

Anastasia had never learnt how to swim. She had never been in a volume of water any larger than her bath tub, and had not had any particular desire to do so. It was their first summer together that she changed her mind on the matter, when she saw Robin go swimming with his nieces and nephews, his sister and her husband wading out from time to time to join them. By then, she was secure enough in her cooking to watch the food over the fire, but sweltering in her clothes and able only to watch as they played, she could not help but feel isolated again.

She deliberated for some time over whether she should ask him to teach her. The summer ticked on, hot and joyful, and eventually she approached him.

“Robin... you know how I don’t come into the water with you.”

He nodded.

For a moment she was almost too afraid to continue, then she braced herself and admitted that she did not know how to swim. Saying it aloud made her feel more vulnerable than she would have expected, made her voice crack and her eyes fall to the ground, but he did not laugh at her.

“Do you want me to show you?” he offered, before she even asked.

She almost cried in relief and accepted, barely managing not to beg. Robin beamed with delight the next day when they went to the river and he began to teach her. At first the water was frightening, but over days and weeks it becomes welcome, their place to swim and play and lie on the beach to dry in the sun. Without saying anything, she held his hand, and it was more than enough.

 

5\. To Trust

Anastasia had never learnt how to trust. Indeed, she hardly knew the word when she was a child: If Cinderella was not present to torment, then Drizella would turn on someone or something else instead: Anastasia to taunt, Lucifer to frustrate, flies to pull the legs off. Her mother was a distant figure, aloof at best and generally unimpressed with either of her daughters. And, once again, there was no-one else in her life.

After the first time that they had even met, when she had seen him collecting flowers, she had not even thought that they could be for her. Of course he would love someone else. She could barely believe it when he bought that final flower to her.

Every time they talked or walked out, the niggling fear lingered in her mind that this might not be real, the he might be speaking lies, or that he would suddenly snap to his senses and leave her, run fast and far and leave her like almost everyone else in her life had. It was only after weeks, after months, that she began to dare believe that this might be true, that this might actually be a happy... well, not necessarily ever after, but at least a happy while.

At their wedding, when she released the King’s hand – he had been so good to her, so kind, but she still feared him – to take Robin’s, she still feared the fact that this might not be real. As she promised to love, honour and obey, her voice trembled, and not just because of the tears of joy in her eyes. She meant the words, she was sure, but she could barely even trust herself. How could she deliver herself so wholly into the hands of someone else?

Robin met her eyes, and gave her the most tender smile she had ever seen, as he gave his vows in response. It made flare hope in her heart.

When she realised that she was pregnant, it only took her a little over a week to trust him enough to tell him.

When she saw his tears of joy, she believed them.

 

+1. To Love

Anastasia had never learnt how to love. Drizella had no concept of the idea, did not until the day that she was turned into a frog and banished far into the depths of the kingdom. She knew that she was expected to love her mother, and that her mother was expected to love her, but it never seemed to happen. At best, she was tolerated, at worst... she tried not to think of the worst.

She knew of love from stories, and from fairytales, and from the songs that she heard Cinderella sing, distant and haunting. Wrapping her arms around herself, she could imagine what it might feel like to be held by another, to be loved.

The realisation that she loved Robin crept up, slowly. Not the love itself: that hit fast and full, like a wave that engulfed her without drowning her. But the realisation that it was love, that there was a name already there for this warmth and closeness and need for him, that took more time. When it finally dawned on her, it was in one of her sleepless nights when dreams kept chasing her back to wakefulness, and she rolled over and drew close to Robin, twining herself into his arms even as he snored, gently, reassuringly.

She had never kissed anyone before Robin. Never been held by anyone. Later, when they drew too close to bear and even air between them was too much, he was the first one that she lay bare before, and they found and explored each other slowly and tentatively. Robin was shy, and at first she let him believe that she was the same, but over time he came to realise, and she to admit, that it was instead the deep-down scars which she was struggling to overcome.

She never explained, but he understood, on some instinctive level, what each thing meant to her. How holding his hand or kissing him or letting his fingers drift across her shoulder could be such a thrilling and such a frightening moment. How baring her body meant baring her soul.

Robin understood that she struggled with the word love. It took her months to speak it. At their wedding, it was the first time that she had said it in front of other people, and when she whispered it to him over and over again as they took their first dance he hugged her closer, smiled into her hair and breathed back: “I know, Anastasia. I love you too.”


End file.
